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[joet63]

Well what can I say, the man's an absolute Genius!!! The gig was fantastic, about an hour and a half, what joy to hear all those analogue sounds live! Lush warm sonic nirvana!

It gave me so much inspiration to make music of this kind, (not the same though!), and try and get my own music to his high standard, in saying that, it'll be a while for that to happen, but here goes!!!!

joe
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[Fingers]

Well... I've just got back from the Albert Hall.

What a treat to see those old instruments at work. (I'll forgive the Alesis A6 that was prominent in Jarre's rack). Nice sound, and the Albert Hall acoustics fantastic as always. Lots of people on their feet at the end, slapping hands at the stage edge, their hero bouncing up and down.

But the performance.... I went expecting a fairly sterile gig, but this was truly AWFUL.

The first thing is the set list... If you've seen "Live in your Living Room", add to that Oxygene 12 with the band, and Oxy13 solo and that's the gig. 80 mins. 80mins, no support act. £75. That's just not good enough.

Next, Jarre is a truly terrible keyboard player. There were points in the show where I was hoping the next phrase on the keyboard would be the last as it was so painfully bad to listen to. The various variations and improvised bits were just 4 guys playing along with a single sequenced refrain, and again there were times when they were painful to be within earshot of.

If the band aren't able to keep the same time and lose their place in an 80min gig then they need to rehearse more. Thousands of amateur bands make the effort to know what they're playing! Quite frankly Jarre took the pi55 out of every member of that audience by taking their money and their applause.

Highlight - the second half of Oxy2 was excellent. Oxy6 was ok.
Worst bit - the obsolute rip off of charging people £75 for 80 minutes, especially when 40 mins is made up of badly played part improv garbage.

It's sad. I've been a serious fan for 20 years. As someone who spent his childhood sequencing backing lines to most Jarre tracks, and who played along with those sequences on a self customised KX5 matched to his Houston/Lyon KX5, I've lost a boyhood hero. Can't maintain the fiction any more - his composing has dwindled, his performing is poor, and now he's ripped me off. Enough.
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Current: TritonPro76 (MOSS, EXB8 and EXB9), XP-50, KX5, Chapman Stick
Past: D-20, DX-7, DX-27, Poly800
Dream: Having time to use them.

[Kevin Nolan]

Fingers -

I went to Jarre on both nights he was in Dublin (I'm from Dublin) and also in the Royal Albert Hall (I had booked that before he announced he was playing in Dublin!). Jarre was a major influence on why I became a composer.

While I totally understand where you're coming from, I ask you not to abandon Jarre or to feel too bad about the concert. I do understand your point. Nevertheless, before attending I had decided to suspend my expectation of the perfection of the original recording, and to expect the unexpected. And indeed the performance was quite raw and about as 'unplugged' as Jarre can get. And while I would have loved to have heard Oxygene as it was originally recorded, I just felt great to be there.

For the Dublin concerts, I sat on a balcony about 8-10 feet away, and could witness everything happening on stage. Even though I was at the very back of the Royal Albert Hall, I still found it to be a wonderful venue.

And while Jarre's playing was rough at times, the overall sound was very intriguing, given that he genuinely played it all live and on 30 year old instruments with not a computer in sight. Put yourself in his shoes. Imagine trying to get a total concert together with just analogue synthesizers with no memory banks. Overall I felt it was, despite the warts and all, a very genuine and honest attempt, hugely entertaining and wonderfully human. Indeed I know several friends who where hugely refreshed by the concert’s live roughness, instead of Jarre using perfect backing tracks.

Another aspect to this - given the amount of time for rehearsal, I felt he did a great job. One of the ways I compose is to record my improvisations, and if I feel there is something in one I'll learn it and then perhaps develop it. It’s often a painstaking experience, and sometimes it takes me months to learn just one of my improvisations. For Jarre to relearn Oxygene in such a short space of time is therefore quite impressive to me. So while there were a few pieces where he was winging it a bit, I just felt that he probably hadn’t sufficient time to go back and learn everything perfectly. But what should he do - suspend the DVD release and concert tour for the sake of performance perfection? In balance, I'm glad he went ahead, despite some of the shortcomings. Remember - he just released Teo and Tea last summer and since then has remastered Oxygene, produced the 3D DVD and organised the tour - that's a lot of work in a short space of time. I wish I had the work rate to do all that. But overall, to create about an hour and a half of live music that had quite a lot of punch, with few of the usual hooks that usually engage live audiences and with no acoustic instruments to provide the usual human connection and dynamics, I feel he did a magnificent job (as he did all those years back with the original recordings).

But another aspect of this is - he was definitely just having fun on stage. I bet you he purposely decided to not have all pieces perfect for two reasons - firstly to have a bit of live, 'down and dirty' fun; and the second is that, as he indicated at the beginning of the concert, he looks at the Oxygene and Equinox era as a more innocent and epic time; hence his rough and organic performance more reflect his own outlook of more recent times. Finally, for a man who has sold about 60 million albums, I for one give him license to do what the hell he likes on stage every so often.


I was at the first night of the Docklands all those years ago and it was a truly awesome experience. But this was, for me, far better. Over the three nights I saw Jarre, he chatted to the audience differently each time, was utterly genuine, a real decent bloke who totally appreciated his audience, and actually put his back into each performance. There was a heck of a lot to remember on stage apart from notes - he certainly earned his fee. On the first night in Dublin he told us that his PA, an Irish woman, had buried her father that day; and so Jarre dedicated his encore to her and her father. I wondered would he do the same the second night - but he didn't - and that was significant to me. It told me he wasn't working to a script. Indeed in the Royal Albert Hall he spoke differently again and it was clear that London and the UK have been very important to his success and career. Overall from hearing him chat to the audience over the three nights I found him to be a hugely optimistic and thoughtful human being.

I say all of this as a fan who lost interest in much of this recent music, wondering if he'd lost the plot. But the concerts have revealed to me a great character altogether. Most of all, for several nights, Jean Michel Jarre played his music for me, and for every individual in the audience. I went with scepticism but I now feel deeply honoured and delighted to have been there. Warts and all, I hope he decides to do similar concerts in the future - they are like a whole new dimension to Jarre that no doubt has caught his imagination also.

So as a kindred fan I respectfully suggest that you think a little more about the whole experience, and hopefully find some positive attributes that will enthuse you once again about a composer who is obviously an important influence.

Cheers,
Kevin.
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Kevin Nolan
KNECT
Email: knolan@knect.ie
WWW: www.knect.ie

[Fingers]

Hi and thanks for your thoughts. I agree on many counts.

To take a concert live with no preset sounds is a big ask. One they accomplished with great flair.

It was great to see Jarre in a more intimate venue (describing the Albert as intimate might seem a bit daft, but in comparison to Wembley or Royal Victoria, it was great.) That he is engaging is not in question.

I can ALMOST forgive the issue of not being able to play all that well through lack of ability. After all, it's his composing, his technical skill, and artistic flair that he's known for. He's not known as a virtuouso keyboardist.

BUT I don't agree re: lack of reheursal time being an excuse for poor performance. I know several pro musicians who run through a score for the first time in the morning, and perform live in the evening.

The live feeling comes across whether you play the right notes or the wrong notes. In time, or out of time. It's just that people will have more respect for your performance if you've actually bothered learning the tune. Especially if you wrote it in the first place!

So 10/10 for taking that technology live. A fantastic achievement. But as for the overall performance and the time on stage... I stand by my assessment. Shoddy performance, lack of effort from a setlist point of view, bit of a rip off.

On the plus side, the 5.1 mix on the DVD of Live in your Living Room is awesome... maybe Jarre should stick to the studio.
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Current: TritonPro76 (MOSS, EXB8 and EXB9), XP-50, KX5, Chapman Stick
Past: D-20, DX-7, DX-27, Poly800
Dream: Having time to use them.